How to Build a Family Business That Lasts Beyond You | Temitope Runsewe | TEDxPAU
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zenlDdPyzM Video ID: 5zenlDdPyzM ============================================================ my name is T and um this morning I'm going to be speaking to us about the foundations of Legacy how to build a family business that lasts Beyond you before I start uh yesterday was my 41st birthday so I think and by coincidence yesterday was the 35th year anniversary of our company Dum construction which I am the second generation um leader for which is part of what I'm going to be talking about this [Applause] morning 2009 I resigned from my job at JP Morgan in London having um studied and worked I left and it was uh January 2019 I just got a promotion and I dropped my letter of resignation my boss at the time looked at me confused asked tell me what is going on don't you like the promotion do you want more money I said no it's not about money it's time to go home he said to do what you're talking about which home are you talking about I said I'm going to Nigeria and he said what are you going to do I told him you will find out what I'm going to do in the next 10 years I left that and I came back to Nigeria and the only thing I've done for the last 15 years is being a part of our family business I started off many years ago growing up my father would take us to sight we'll see how things are done and from an early age I made up my mind that what I want to do in the future was to prove that Africans can build and run transgenerational businesses and this gave birth to what became our vision our mission which ties very closely to what and no spoke about earlier in our mission we are committed to Bringing out the hidden beauty of the African continent through the design and construction of purpose-built infrastructure that enhances socioeconomic conditions I believe that infrastructure makes a whole difference in any part of the world and my view is that in Africa we are not tapping into our cultural heritage because we're a very family oriented Community however we have not translated that fully into the business World which is going to be in my opinion a central part of bringing Africa and Nigeria starting with out of our economic challenges so I said earlier um our business started in specifically November 15th 1989 if you're looking on the screen that was the very first certificate of incorporation of the organization I think it shows registration stamp Duty was 135 naira and um 365 naira was all it took to register the company in 1989 so why family business I believe that the core of families bring brings the necessary tools that is required for a business to grow the reason for this is because family business has the potential for people to have commitment Beyond profit and Beyond money and I'm of the opinion that any business that only exists because of money is not going to last for very long there has to be something more fundamental that drives you and puts you together and where better better for that to exist than in families now as Africans as Nigerians we're very big on family however why is it that we have not been able to use that our core to develop businesses why is that because naturally our nature is communal our nature is community our Nature has a lot of family values if we can translate those Family Values to business values we will build businesses that would Outlast us why family business shared vision and value long-term stability and growth I speak about this very passionately because when I left my job and came back I took about a 10 10 x CT or divided by 10 x CT in what I was earning at JP Morgan to come and do this why would I do that it was has nothing to do with money and in the last 15 years I've sat down many times to ask myself what kind of decision was this decision as you can imagine as running and building a business in Nigeria would often make you think about but why am I still here why am I not going anywhere I'm never going anywhere I'm going to make sure this thing that we're doing which is 35 years today even when when I'm gone still continues to exist what is that that has nothing to do with profit has nothing to do with money there's something Beyond money that is driving me something Beyond money that keeps me up at night something Beyond money that makes me work all days of the week something Beyond money that makes me I remember a story a few months ago maybe last year things were you know in our business construction you can imagine what is going on today cement is 2 naira tomorrow you come it is 1,000 naira just as an hypothetical situation and on one of the days I woke up in the morning and my daughter comes to sit beside me on the bed and says daddy did you sleep last night I said yes she said no you didn't I said what do you mean she said because while you were sleeping I heard you doing calculations I said what do you mean you heard me doing calculations that's not possible he said I heard you I said okay tell me what you had she said you said 1 million 2 million 3 million I said oh that is very true because just before I slept I was calculating salaries and in my head I guess that calculation went into my sleep and I continue so what is making me sit down continue to do this have sleepless nights wake up in the morning and still continue the next day sometimes in the day before I'm like look I'm not doing this anymore but the next morning I get up and show up and keep doing it it is beyond um funds it is beyond profit and that core is what I believe we need to um build on as families to be able to build transition business I think we're we're we're missing out a very very critical part of what makes us Nigerians what makes us Africans just some statistics and numbers these are Global numbers 100% of companies first generation family businesses Now by second generation it reduces to 35% by Third Generation it reduces to 12% by Third it reduce by Beyond third it reduces to 3% these are Global statistics for Nigeria just cut all those numbers by half are you with me so by second generation we're talking less than 15% and then beyond that less than 12% beyond that some of them don't even exist but I I believe strongly it is because we are not taking a good look at this these numbers are Global but by core of us Nigerians and Africans family is a core of what we stand for we need to translate that into how we build businesses just some additional statistics for our information family businesses makes up 70% of global GDP and 60% of employment family businesses in a place like Nigeria in particular all the businesses that used to run agriculture farming if you remember our fathers our grandfathers they will go to farm the entire family is a part of that process the entire family feeds from that process the entire family sends their children to school from that process we need to go back to that and find ways through organizations like Lagos Business School to bring out those core family values and translate them into African business procedures not the overall General business procedures African ones that are specific to our core in Africa and in Nigeria a few examples here of inspiring family businesses globally Walmart since 1962 honey well group in Nigeria here um costar's group and Ford Motors we see some statistics Ford has been in existence for 121 years is a family business Walmart 62 years Honeywell group 52 Karis group 47 our young company 35 years and my belief is that in a few years somebody else will be standing here and saying Dum is a 100e company a family business still existing that is the vision that is the reason why we do what we do that is the reason I'm calculating get 1 million in my sleep and still waking up the next morning and continuing with it so how do we build a sustainable family business one of the very first things that I learned is you need to get the family involved early now I'll tell you something my father never sat down with me one day and said talk by when you're done with school I want you to come and run this business not once but something inside me just felt that I like what he's doing I see what he's doing I've been a part of what he's doing I want to take what he's doing to a different level that was it and how did that happen that was because I used to go with him to site I used to follow him when in the morning there was a particular time being uh um a construction contractor he would travel all over the country he came home one morning after traveling maybe for the week and the car was sounding we hear him from The Junction and he came in all the bumper of the car everything was had fallen apart Daddy what happened he said he hit a cow on the way from Benin that story stuck in my head I've never forgotten it I was a young boy probably less than 10 how do you build sustainable family business open communication you need to be open training and mentorship and training and mentorship is inherent is is like osmosis it flows is not necessarily sitting down like a classroom you can do the formal one um a few years ago after I joined the family business in 2009 in 2010 I found a fames in Business course in Harvard and I sent an email to my dad and mom and my brother at the time who were all part of the business I said I found this course at Harvard famil is in business I think we should attend and all four of us traveled to Harvard for that course that is talking about training and mentorship that's the formal one but most of the training and mentorship is actually informal it happens every day it happens when I see my dad in meetings it happens when I see what he does it happens when I hear how it does what he does and I'm like I want to do this better I think we can do this better now the picture I'm painting might be sounding extremely Rosy the purpose of my TED Talk this morning is not to talk about the disadvantages the purpose of my t talk this morning is to talk about the advantages and get as many people to buy into the idea of building family businesses if you want to learn more about the pros and the cons take a course at lbs I'm sure they'll be able to take you through all of that when I joined the company in 2009 all we did was Construction in the six in the six um states in the southwest of Nigeria and the farthest according to what he said that we had ever gone was Ki State when I came first of all I said I'm not living in Lagos I'm not living in ion where he was I moved to Abuja and I said oh let's start looking for said no no no no no just Legos I said no Chinese people cannot come to Nigeria and work in kafanchan French people cannot come to Nigeria work in myuri and we Nigerians say we're only going to work in our comfort zone ladies and gentlemen between 2009 and now Dum has successfully constructed work in 26 states of Nigeria as of today from nine talking about the evolution let's just look at a few just some quick pictures um dum started actually as a we used to build petrol stations because my dad used to work for Exxon Mobile so the very first thing we built in 1989 that you're seeing in the middle was our first petrol station in ion so the country company has gone through a lot of evolution and then those were the first set of projects we did these ones happened in the 2000s and as of today now from all of these humble Beginnings we're now building seven stories 10 stories and more recently we started the construction of a 20 story building in banana Island in Niki and that is a project that we just handed over on Freedom Way in Ley um um to the client which was uh a 10-story building the point I'm making not all of us can be Founders and it does not mean that you don't have the capacity to be founders ERS this took a long time for me to come to terms with it because as a first child and as a leader I I struggled initially with the idea of appearing to be in the shadow of someone else but that is not true you can own the vision you can own the mission you can own it to a point that it becomes you there's no way because nobody is going to live forever so if you're going to be a part of something that is beyond you you must at some point be willing to take on somebody else's Vision it is good to be a Founder but it is not compulsory to be a Founder because a Founder is not going to live forever and the founder needs a successor so it is important and I took that decision it was conscious I left everything I was doing abandoned it quicked my job and said this business we're going to take it but there was a time I sat down and thought this business sent me to school abroad I should be able to leave it for somebody else and have a POS position where in 100 years time they would say it started with Eng he moved to and then it is now in the hands of another run and on and on in the family like that for 100 years and Beyond 100 years that is the reason well I told you about my daughter earlier there she is smiling on a side and my son on a side we're already preparing them for the future she was was the smart mouth that told me I didn't sleep last night because I was counting 1 million and 2 million I said is you I'm counting it for but she would not understand thank you very much for listening to my TED Talk this morning I hope I've been able to convince you and not confuse you that family business is the future of our economic recovery as a country Nigeria and the future of building sustainable economy as Africans we already have it we just need the experts and the professors to help us turn it into something that we can study and we can pass on to others thank you for listening this morning I hope you've enjoyed it thank you